


Constellations II: The Stars

by thehousewedestroyed



Series: The Real Relationship Was The House We Destroyed Along The Way [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Break Up, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 17:26:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13416054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehousewedestroyed/pseuds/thehousewedestroyed
Summary: How Remus lost Sirius the second time.





	Constellations II: The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Constellations I: The Sun.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13414866) There's adult-minor mutual crushing in this, but nothing acted upon. This references events in Dark Side of the Moon, where Sirius and Remus are secretly together for most of Prisoner of Azkaban. It also deals with how Sirius survived the Order of the Phoenix (our canon divergence), and what happened between Remus and Sirius before More Than A Firebolt.

The thing about destiny is, there’s no room for _if_.

‘If’ was the worst word in Remus’ vocabulary. _If I’d only realised I was losing him. If James and Peter and Lily hadn’t died. If I told them how Sirius escaped._

Destiny brokered no alternatives. This was what had happened, and it was always going to be what would have happened. Remus found some comfort in that, when he first started teaching at Hogwarts.

And in some ways it was no help at all. He woke up on the train to see a tiny James Potter in front of him, and for a stupid moment his heart told him Sirius was back, James was back, _they were back_ , and he cast the Patronus before he could think.

A Lupin, a Black, and a Potter, back at Hogwarts again. Drawn together like gravity, like three stars in the infinite distance of space, pulled by invisible, imaginary, irrational ties. Destiny had a cruel sense of humour.

Once more it was Remus working things like a loom. Keeping Sirius close, but away from everyone else, hidden in the Forest, trying to make a sword a heart again. Loving Sirius—being Sirius’ lover—that came as easily as breathing. Keeping Sirius a safe distance from James—no, _Harry_ —that was like riding a bicycle. Himself and Harry, that was something different, though he supposed it was just as odd a thread between he and James.

Harry wasn’t James. Remus could see glimpses of something similar, still feel the swell of his heart at this ambitious, stubborn boy who shines as bright as the sun. Remus felt at once young again and terribly old, to see the affection Harry held for him at being treated kindly. Harry at thirteen was not James at thirteen, but nor was Remus at thirteen the same as Remus at thirty-three. Certainly, the kinds of things James and Remus got up to at fourteen were unimaginable. Harry was not the only student who took a shine to him, as unnerving as all of that was to Remus. At least it was easy to ignore. Keeping Harry alive was enough trouble. Courting this strange, wordless shell of Sirius felt like bridling a hippogriff. A different kind of dance, then, between the same three stars: now to seek each other, to save each other.

So it remained, after learning Sirius was innocent. They wove their old threads, stretching them across twelve years apart and trimming everything that had frayed in the absence. He and Sirius fell into being lovers again, like recollecting the story of a heart, not a sword. There was a new star blinking into existence, not truly in the place of the old one but the same to the eye to a stargazer. Like destiny.

The first year in Grimmauld Place tested them all. Sirius was brimming with that old resentment, while they were caught up in the affairs of the Order. It was a house that was home to neither of them, that Remus had grown up hearing hateful stories about, that he had always offered to shelter Sirius from. It was all around them now, and the foulness of it seemed to get in Harry too. Just like James and Sirius would, the pair of them were challenging everyone but Remus, while bristling at how he’d always been the calmer one. Instead of a boyhood shared, Harry and Sirius were a pair of escapees trapped again, growing thick as thieves in the absence of anyone else to trust.

The new star grew brighter, and the lines between easier to make out in the night sky.

It was the second summer there, when Sirius dodged death by the skin of his teeth, the mirror had called Sirius’ name. Remus, half-asleep beside him, was perfectly sure for a moment that it was James’ face. He’d seen James so many times in that mirror, heard James’ voice so many times in their bed, that he felt something snap into place then.

By the holidays, Sirius had recovered Harry from his relatives, and the three of them were under the same roof once more. That summer was lazy and sticky-hot in Remus’ memory. Warm like a bed you weren’t ready to get out of. The three of them idled in it, tearing down old walls of Grimmauld Place and daring the war to snatch them away. They gave Harry a home, they gave him love, and once again they were three. Harry, who’d grown up in the dark, bounded down the stairs, sang along to the radio, and got himself food wherever he liked. Weeks into his sixteenth year he was a head taller, a great deal broader, and an increasingly urgent problem for Sirius.

All three of them ignored it: Harry probably oblivious, Sirius only subconscious, Remus clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t all happen again. But the haze of warmth made them all careless, and one afternoon Harry stopped sanding the floorboards they’d been working on all day and tugged his shirt over his head, and Sirius— _oh_ , his beloved Sirius glanced at Harry only for a moment before looking to Remus with a charged, unnameable expression.

There was a tangible, terrible shift. Harry was happy here. And he was gorgeously, resplendently, growing into himself. _Growing into James_ , Remus corrected his thoughts, but no, that wasn’t it. He was growing into _Harry_ , and _Harry_ was growing inevitably towards the two of them. A Lupin, a Black, and a Potter.

But once you have seen the connection, you cannot unsee it.

Sirius didn’t know. It was just like with James, to not even realise how deeply entangled he was in something he couldn’t have. Remus felt just as culpable, the counterweight, the gravity that pulled those two into their knotted mess. He couldn’t do it again—he couldn’t let _them_ do it again. He had to untie the knot before it needed cutting. Even to tell Sirius would hurt him too much, to make him aware of something neither he nor Harry would be ready to confront.

When Harry left for school, Sirius sulked without knowing why, and it felt so much like James had gone back to Lily that Remus let go, there and then. He let the line slacken until they were untangled, loose but not in love, and Sirius didn’t understand. Perhaps he hadn’t been told the story of these three stars, and nobody had pointed out the lines between them and the shape they would make, and perhaps Remus did believe in destiny, if he couldn’t do something about it.


End file.
